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https://ell.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/122575

(noun) a social butterfly /queen

Two reviewers rejected it with the following reason:

  • This edit was intended to address the author of the post and makes no sense as an edit. It should have been written as a comment or an answer.
  • The edit does not improve the quality of the post. Changes to the content are unnecessary or make the post more confusing.

The question is about which words to use, and my edit in bold supplements the answer with a new usage. I don't see in any means this is 'intended to address the author of the post', and 'does not improve the quality of the post'. I agree that this tiny change is 'unnecessary' since the original answer is abundant, however, I think it is beneficial to enrich it.

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    You may want to review the guidance for editing in the Help Center. Edits should not change the meaning (even by adding new points). You are expressing your ideas and making it seem as if they belonged to the original author. That’s not the right way to accomplish what you’re trying to do. Leave a comment and let the author decide if they want to incorporate your suggestions.
    – ColleenV
    Jun 25, 2021 at 16:18
  • @ColleenV Thank you, that is an explanation. I am not aware of this rule and, on the contrary, I thought that the opposite is true all along, since that in other sites (mainly tech) I have visited such edit is always approved, which may sound weird. I just read the guidance of those sites and surprisingly they are identical, all mentioning that an edit is usually done `without changing' the meaning of the original post. Will you turn your comment into an answer so that I can accept it?
    – Sherry869
    Jun 25, 2021 at 17:41
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    Is "a social queen" an appropriate answer for someone who easily communicates with others? Or did you mean "a social butterfly queen"? It's unclear and for those reason alone I would reject the edit.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Jun 25, 2021 at 17:41

3 Answers 3

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Edits should not change the meaning of a post (even by adding new points). When you make an edit to someone else's post, you are making it seem as if your ideas belong to the original author. That’s not the right way to suggest an improvement to a post. A better way to do that would be to leave a comment and let the author decide if they want to incorporate your suggestions.

The help center page on the editing privilege explains:

When should I edit posts?
Any time you feel you can make the post better, and are inclined to do so. Editing is encouraged!
Some common reasons to edit are:

  • to fix grammatical or spelling mistakes
  • to clarify the meaning of a post without changing it
  • to correct minor mistakes or add addendums / updates as the post ages
  • to add related resources or hyperlinks

Tiny, trivial edits are discouraged - try to make the post significantly better when you edit, correcting all problems that you observe.

Sometimes the difference between improving a post and overriding the original author's intent with our own preferences and style is not always clear. If you aren't sure about an edit that you're thinking about making, or that you've seen someone else make, asking about it here on Meta is the right thing to do.

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I rejected that edit because it didn't improve the quality of the answer. If you have a new suggestion, I encourage you to post it as a separate answer.

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  • Thanks for your reply. 'I rejected that edit because it didn't improve the quality of the answer': why doesn't an enrichment improve the quality of the answer?
    – Sherry869
    Jun 25, 2021 at 11:29
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As ColleenV has pointed out, the guidance mentions that an edit is usually done `without changing' the meaning of the original post. The suggested edit added a new point, and thus considered inappropriate.

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